Next Steps

Now that the Torturer-in-Chief has in his grasp the tools to imprison anyone, anywhere, for any (or no) reason, forever, while subjecting them to repeated and prolonged torture, what's next? I don't mean that in the same sense that Tristero at Digby asks the question, "Well. Now what?" He is pondering ways of combatting the Imperial Leader now that he has untrammelled power. Tristero offers no contructive ideas, other than staring clear-eyed into the reality of what America has become, but he does sound a rallying cry:

"Finally, we must realize that we will be fighting what this unspeakable bastard has done to the country and the world for a very long time. "

Likewise, Glenn Greenwald is issuing a call to the barricades:

"The most important and overriding mandate is to end the one-party rule to which our country has been subjected for the last four years. Achieving that is necessary -- it is an absolute pre-requisite -- to begin to impose some actual limits on the authoritarian behavior and unchecked powers of this administration -- because, right now, there are no such limits."

Such pronouncements are entertaining, but Greenwald has inadvertently admitted they are equally irrational. There are, he notes, no longer any limits on excutive power. Yet he suggests the Boy King and his Imperial Regent will somehow be reined in by the "power of the ballot":

"George Bush and Dick Cheney will never face even another midterm election ever again. They will be free to run wild for the next two years with a Congress that is so submissive and blindly loyal that it is genuinely creepy to behold."

Sorry, Glenn. It isn't going to happen. In the unlikely event there is an election on November 7th, its result will be completely irrelevant. The legislation slavishly adopted by the Royalist-controlled Congress explicits removes any legislative oversight on executive power. Once that law is on the books (by next week), there will be nothing Congress can do to stop Imperial excesses. Nothing. Congress has rendered itself -- and the people who elected it -- utterly impotent. Even if the Anti-Royalists were allowed the win a majority in this election, they would have absolutely no power to reverse the course upon which the Royalists have set us. An outright repeal of the Torture Enablement Act of 2006, were such a thing ever to win a majority vote in Congress, would be promptly vetoed. And the Royalists will maintain enough Congressional seats to ensure no override could succeed.

More likely, any Anti-Royalist who even proposed such a thing would disapear into the American gulag for life. After all, trying to limit George the Tyrant's power to break the bodies of his enemies is "objectively pro-terrorist". Now that there's a new secret police force in charge of identifying enemies of the crown, I have no doubt there are many Imperial minions poring over newspaper articles and Internet posts, compiling names of those who will be "disappeared".

So I'm not of a mind to conjure up ways to try and undo what has been done to our nation. frankly, I'm more interested in trying to divine what the Torquemada-in-Chief will do first, now that he can act with impugnity (and, needless to say, legal immunity). It has already started, of course. He is branding anyone who disagrees with him as allies of terrorists. How long will it take him to start ordering their apprehension, detention and interrogation by "alternate techniques"? A week? A month?

Perhaps he'll just designate every Anti-Royalist candidate for Congress an "enemy of the crown" and have them all rounded up before election day. That seems a rather labor-intensive way to achieve his goals. And this guy doesn't do anything the hard way. No, he wants the simplest, most straightforward method possible.

He's going to cancel the election. No doubt, someone will come up with "credible threat" that will trigger a national emergency (read: "martial law") to provide some sort of cover story for calling off the November 7th vote. It doesn't matter how specious the supposed "threat" turns out to be. It only need to be superficially serious enough to allow his Imperial Eminence to unplug the voting machines. No election, no chance of losing the Congressional majority that has enabled him so far.

But these guys think in the long term. So I'm wondering what the Boy King intends to do about the looming end of his term. He cannot, under the Constitution, serve beyond January 20, 2009. That's not nearly long enough to accomplish everything he has set out to do. Shoot, it's barely enough time to hand out "reconstruction contracts" for post-war Iran. I suspect there's already a plan in the works to get around that little impediment. It might work something like this:

Sometime in 2009, after the the cancellation of the presidential election and the enthronement of a permanent, hereditary Emperor of America in the person of little Junior Bush, Imperial Viceroy Dick Cheney will take quite ill. (Not so ill that he can't serve as the liberally-compensated chairman of a major defense contractor, mind you, but ill enough that he's not up to actually running the empire any more.) The Emperor will no doubt designate someone close to him to take over the day-to-day management of the imperium -- preferably, someone who has executive experience, but also has unquestioned loyalty to the royal family.

There's really only one candidate, of course: Jeb Bush. He is after all the next in the line of family succession. He'll be out of work (his current term ends in January and he can't run again). And he is slavishly devoted to his big brother. Moreover, his elevation will ensure the orderly, hereditary royal bloodline.

In time, George the Tyrant will tire of his duties. After all, he's never held a job for more than a handful of years (his half decade at the helm of the Texas Rangers and six years as Governor of Texas are his longest tenures in any position before his current one). Sometime in the next few years, he'll be ready to move on -- there's plenty of brush to clear back in Crawford. Jeb will take his place on the throne and, of course, immediately designate his own Crown Prince to carry on the family tradition.

Long live the King.

The Compleat Tyrant

There has been a truly shameless spectacle playing out in Washington the last few weeks. The Royalists are staging naked aggression against the most sacred principles of the American republic, and no one has seemed willing to call them on it. Only in the 59th minute of the 11th hour have putative Anti-Royalists bothered to raise an objection. As a result, there seems to be nothing that will prevent the United States Congress from abandoning the people who elected it to the tryannical whims of our Boy King.

Both House and Senate have now voted to grant the Pretender-in-Chief that which he most covets -- the untrammeled and absolute right to declare anyone anywhere in the world an "enemy of the crown". Those so designated may be abducted, confined, tortured, even killed, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. There is no appeal, no review, not a single check or balance on this Imperial whim.

That is not a statement of hyperbole. It is a fact, as noted by Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman in the Los Angeles Times:

"The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights."

Glenn Greenwald quite properly names the authors of this traitorous outrage:

"...we are legalizing tyranny in the United States. Period. Primary responsibility for this fact lies with the authoritarian Bush administration and its sickeningly submissive loyalists in Congress. That is true enough. But there is no point in trying to obscure the fact that it's happening with the cowardly collusion of the Senate Democratic leadership, which quite likely could have stopped this travesty via filibuster if it chose to (it certainly could have tried)."

King George the Tyrant is bringing to reality a long-held Royalist dream -- to strip Americans of any right to question the actions of their overlords. That right is embodied in the writ of habeas corpus, a legal protection enshrined as the cornerstone of self-governance as far back as the Magna Carta. It has been under attack by Royalists for decades. Consider:

"Up to now, if you are in prison, you have had the protection of the writ of habeas corpus – the centuries-old legal device by which people wrongfully imprisoned or sentenced to death could raise violations of their constitutional rights or present new evidence that could exonerate them.
If President Bush has his way in the . . . legislation pending before Congress, you won’t have this protection any longer."

That warning -- which could have come from any of a myriad of legal scholars today, had they the fortitude to speak -- was actually written 15 years ago by a criminal defense attorney. He was referring to the FIRST President Bush. As events now unfolding demonstrate, the rotten apple does not fall far from the poisoned tree. And it didn't take long for the Royalists to seize upon the 9/11 attacks to increase their drumbeat for Congress to dispense with the inconvenience of the writ.

"The government’s assault on habeas corpus began six days after September 11, when Attorney General Ashcroft circulated draft legislation — what would soon become the Patriot Act — that included provisions for suspending the writ."

Five years later, Ashcroft can tell his king, "Mission Accomplished". And the legislation doesn't stop at destroying a fundamental liberty. That's a toy only the Boy King and his Crown Prince get to play with. They're the ones -- and the only ones -- who can declare a person an enemy of the crown, order the chosen victim imprisoned and subjected to "alternative interrogation techniques" indefinitely -- until death , if it strikes their fancy. No, there's a little something buried in this odious confection for the rest of the Imperial Court's hired thugs, as CNN's Jack Cafferty explains:

"President Bush is trying to pardon himself. Here’s the deal: Under the War Crimes Act, violations of the Geneva Conventions are felonies, in some cases punishable by death. When the Supreme Court ruled that the Geneva Convention applied to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, President Bush and his boys were suddenly in big trouble. They’ve been working these prisoners over pretty good. In an effort to avoid possible prosecution they’re trying to cram this bill through Congress before the end of the week before Congress adjourns." (emphasis added)

Yes, King george is granting his most loyal retainers absolution in advance for any depravities they might commit in the coming years, and immunizing them from retribution for crimes already committed. Once the Imperial hand scrawls the name of our Usurper King on the bottom of this measure, then, there is nothing, and no one, to stop him from doing anything he bloody wants. Any elected official, law enforcement officer, or private citizen who dares to voice even the mildest of criticisms can be whisked off to the new American gulag and taught the true meaning of patriotism. And it's all perfectly legal.

How many times will we hear that defense in the coming years? As if getting a sniveling group of cowards masquerading as members of the United States Congress to abandon any semblance of principles and any pretext of upholding the Constitution somehow makes such filthy business wholesome and clean. "It's perfectly legal," we'll be told. "We are following the law," we'll be assured.

It is the first duty of the oppressor to make oppression "legal". That charade has given the color of law to acts of depraved inhumanity for centuries. If you've forgotten, here's a refresher course:

Slavery in the United States, 1776-1861. Perfectly legal.
Apartheid in South Africa, 1948-1994. Perfectly legal.
The Disappeared in Argentina, 1976-1983. Perfectly legal.
The Holocaust in Europe, 1938-1945. Perfectly legal.
The Crucifixion of Jesus in Jerusalem, circa 30 AD. Perfectly legal.

Our Imperial Master is now poised to join this ghastly parade. The moment this abomination becomes the law of the land, the United States of America will disappear. In its place will be a wholly unrecognizable country where there are no laws, only the iron fist of the despot.

God help us all.

Lies, Damn Lies and Right-wing Whoppers

As expected, the criminal regime occupying Washington continues to assert its Divine Right to break the law. The laughably mislabelled Department of Justice (Orwell, anyone?) has formally asked a federal judge to allow the National Security Agency (see previous parenthetical) to continue its warrantless eavsdopping on American citizens, which that same judge has already ruled both criminal and unconstitutional. She has also issued a permanent injuction against the felonious conduct, which the NSA is flagrantly flouting. The parties (ACLU on one side, brownshirts on the other) go before her again September 7th to argue over whether she should stay that injunction. Until that time, it is in effect, and, true to form, the gangsters who have sworn fealty to Familia Bush are violating it.

And they will continue to do so, no matter what the outcome of the next hearing. The consiglieri are merely going through the legal motions, knowing full well a higher court will eventually get its hands on the case. And when that happens, the fix is in. The matter will ultimately be determined by a Supreme Court packed with lackeys who have pledged allegiance to the racketeer influenced corrupt organization known as the Royalist White House.

In the meantime, the Royalists are running hither and yon blathering speciously and falsely about the case, the decision and, of course, the judge. Representative is a flatulent blast posted in something called "The Post Chronicle" by Jim Kouri, titled, "Liberal-Left Creates Confusion about NSA Surveillance Program." (Loathe as I am to link to such tripe, you can read it here if you feel you must.) Already in the title, Kouri is lying. The "liberal-left" (as opposed to, say, the conservative-left or the liberal-right, I guess) is not the source of confusion about the NSA's criminal activity. What opponents of our Imperial President have pointed out -- factually and accurately -- is that the NSA surveillance program is felonious, and everyone involved is violating the criminal statutes of the United States (including His Imperialness himself).

Kouri wastes no time following the White House script by obfuscating the legal issues and slandering the judge:

"The moment I read in her decision the term 'warrentless wiretaps' I knew Judge Taylor's decision was more political than constitutional. These were not wiretaps. They were intercepts of communications between suspected terrorists overseas and people residing in the United States."

Rarely has a more egregious aggregation of falsehoods ever appeared in a single paragraph written in the English language. Putting aside (for the moment) Kouri's vapid, boilerplate, and completely unsupported assertion that Judge Anna Diggs Taylor was practicing politics instead of doing her Constitutional duty, he claims the NSA operation does not involve wiretaps.

Baloney.

Our Puppet King himself said so, when he confirmed the existence of the illegal program on December 17, 2005:
"I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations." (Official White House Transcript)

Of course, he was not taking actions "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution", as anyone who has read either could clearly see. But he left no doubt about what the NSA was up to. It was snooping on phone calls -- and emails and instant messages and other supposedly private communications. Kouri is simply talking through his hat when he says there were no wiretaps. The techniques were not limited to wiretaps, but you can rest assured, phones are being bugged.

And note what His Imperial Maliciousness said about who was targeted: "people with known links to al Qaeda". Not "suspected terrorists overseas", as Kouri falsely asserts. "Known links to al Qaeda" could mean virtually anything -- family members, fellow villagers, people in the same area code. And at no point does the Clown-in-Chief assert that it is the targets who are overseas. They could be (indeed, the lawsuit in question alleges, they are) American citizens in their own homes. Under the admitted surveillance program (and there are others that have been acknowleged but not revealed), only one party to the call need be overseas, and it need not be the "linked" person.

So Kouri, not the "liberal-left", is the one sowing "confusion about the NSA surveillance program". But he doesn't stop there. He then proceeds to conflate domestic eavesdropping -- which is permitted under the inherent police powers of the state when conducted within the limits of the law -- with broader powers conferred on the office of the president by statute and Constitution:

"The President has constitutional power not only to retaliate against any person, organization, or State suspected of involvement in terrorist attacks on the United States, but also against foreign States suspected of harboring or supporting such organizations.

"The President may deploy military force preemptively against terrorist organizations or the States that harbor or support them, whether or not they can be linked to the specific terrorist incidents of September 11."

All of which may be true (though not nearly as sweepingly as Kouri asserts), but all of which is absolutely irrelevant to the NSA domestic spying scandal. Kouri is describing the president's powers as commander-in-chief of the military. But the NSA is not a military organization, even though it is often run by a military officer. It does not operate under military "rules of engagement". It operates under the U.S. Code, civil and criminal. So whatever military authority the president has, under the Constitution and federal statutes, it does not extend to the NSA's domestic operations. Moreover, electronic eavesdropping is not a military action. It is a police action. As such, it is permitted only under the constraints imposed, as Judge Taylor rightly points out, by the Fourth Amendment and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Kouri concludes that Congress specifically granted the Bush Junta the power to eavesdrop on American citizens without court supervision in the Joint Resolution known as the "Authorization for the Use of Military Force". That is, quite bluntly, an enormous lie. Here is the entire text (minus the "whereas's") of the resolution:

(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements-

(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.

(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this resolution supercedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

Where, exactly, does Kouri find the word "surveillance" in that resolution? Well, he doesn't. He simply inserts it on his own authority:

"Part of any military action is the gathering of intelligence including intelligence obtained through electronic intercepts."

So just what type of "military action" is the Bush Gang planning in, say, Miami? You know, where that "terrorist cell" busted with much fanfare turned out to be merely "aspirational"? None, of course. It's the FBI that busted them, not the 101st Airborne. The AUMF is completely silent on the domestic investigative tools available to law enforcement agencies and intelligence services. There is no way to stretch those words to make them reach the lawless snooping on U.S. citizens.

But Kouri would never be allowed into the right wing "Kool Kidz Klub" without tossing in a few snide remarks about the judge in the case. He makes no pretense of researching her judicial history. Instead, he blithely indicts her as a "Jimmy Carter appointee with a history of activism on the bench". His evidence? She once ruled a patently religious display could not be placed on property owned by taxpayers. (Proving, if nothing else, that the judge has read the First Amendment, and Kouri has not.) He then tosses out a slur at her ethics, with no substantiation. He offers nothing to support his bald assertion that she acts "politically" in ruling on the cases before her.

Before we leave the subject of character assassination, let's give Kouri a little bit of his own medicine. Now, I know nothing about Kouri except for what's in the biographical sketch on his own website (http://jimkouri.us/). That means I know at least as much about his politics, his ethics and his accomplishments as Kouri knows about Judge Taylor. Thus, I can treat him with the same uninformed disdain he treats Her Honor.

This is a man who lists as his leading accomplishment his tenure as the chief (presumably police chief) of a public housing project in New York, which was widely known as "Crack City". Now, honestly, if the place you were in charge of policing earned the reputation as a lawless drug den, would you brag about it? How good a cop does it take to allow the crack plague to fester among society's most vulnerable? If that qualifies him to provide "expert analysis" on the federal statutes regulating government eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, then Paris Hilton is qualified to offer expert commentary on U.S. labor law.

Moreover, Kouri identifies himself as Fifth-Vice President of the National Association of Chiefs of Police. I've looked at the organization's website, and I can find no description of the duties of the Fifth-Vice President, nor an explanation of why the outfit needs (at least) five vice presidents. So where, exactly, does the Fifth-Vice President fit on the Table of Organization -- right after Miss Congeniality?

Further, the organization is a 501(c)(3) charity. That means it is absolutely prohibited from participating in partisan campaigns. This is a campaign year. Kouri is participating in partisan activity. Does the National Association of Chiefs of Police endorse his actions? If so, when is the IRS going to revoke its tax status?

The preceeding assessment of Kouri's fitness to comment on the NSA case is every bit as factual and unbiased as his assessment of Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's job performance. Wonder how he likes the treatment?

Why, you might ask, do I spend so much time and energy picking at this pimple on the rump of the body politick? Because Glenn Greenwald asked me to. Well, not me specifically. He has challenged the media -- and by extension, its readers, viewers and listeners -- to push back against the pack of lies being promulgated by the Royalists to advance the cause of illegal spying on American citizens. A measure by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Cowardice) comes up for debate this week. It would retroactively pardon the Boy King and his minions for their crimes.

I'm just doing my part.

Beyond Theft -- Part Two

I have already gone fearlessly on the record with my take on the Royalist strategy for the 2006 elections. Little did I know that the power behind the throne would be so blatant about the machinations he's putting in place to steal again.

"They [Karl Rove and company] have determined that control of Congress is likely to be settled in as few as six states and have decided to focus most of the party’s resources there, said Republican officials who did not want to be identified discussing internal deliberations. Those states will likely include Connecticut, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington, though officials said the battle lines could shift in coming weeks." (emphasis added)

That's not exactly the list of states I suggested ("Florida. Ohio. Nebraska. All states where this year's congressional elections could turn Congress Democratic. Do not be surprised if, sometime before Election Day, 'credible and specific terrorist threats' are reported in all three states, threats so terrifying it would not be in the public interest to stage an event that would put large numbers of people in easily-identifiable, easily-targeted locations -- like polling places. So the elections will, of course, need to be cancelled. "). But it certainly fits into the same overall strategy I suggested three months ago. So to the residents of Connecticut, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington, I can only say: be prepared. Make other plans for Election Day, because there is no way in Hell you're going to be allowed to cast ballots.

(Inspired by DK at TPM)